Internet Streaming and Network Neutrality: Comparing the Performance of Video Hosting Services

Alessio Botta, Aniello Avallone, Mauro Garofalo, Giorgio ventre

2016

Abstract

Network neutrality is a hot topic since a few years and involves different aspects of interest (e.g. economic, regulatory and privacy) for a wide range of stakeholders, including policy makers, researchers, economists, and service providers. When referring to video streaming, a killer web service of the Internet, much has been discussed regarding if and how video providers violate or may violate neutrality principles, in order to give users a “better” service compared to other services or to other providers. In this paper we provide a contribution to this discussion analyzing the performance of three main video hosting providers (i.e. YouTube, Vimeo, and Dailymotion) from an user viewpoint. We measure the throughput and RTT experienced by users watching real videos of different popularity, at different day hours and at several locations from around the world. We uncover the performance differences of these providers as a function of the different variables under control and move a step forward to understand what causes such differences. Our results allow to understand what are the real performance users currently get from these providers and if the performance differences observed can be due or to considered as a violation of network neutrality principles, providing a ground for people interested in legal and regulatory issues of web applications and services.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Botta A., Avallone A., Garofalo M. and ventre G. (2016). Internet Streaming and Network Neutrality: Comparing the Performance of Video Hosting Services . In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Information Systems Security and Privacy - Volume 1: ICISSP, ISBN 978-989-758-167-0, pages 514-521. DOI: 10.5220/0005798705140521

in Bibtex Style

@conference{icissp16,
author={Alessio Botta and Aniello Avallone and Mauro Garofalo and Giorgio ventre},
title={Internet Streaming and Network Neutrality: Comparing the Performance of Video Hosting Services},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Information Systems Security and Privacy - Volume 1: ICISSP,},
year={2016},
pages={514-521},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0005798705140521},
isbn={978-989-758-167-0},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Information Systems Security and Privacy - Volume 1: ICISSP,
TI - Internet Streaming and Network Neutrality: Comparing the Performance of Video Hosting Services
SN - 978-989-758-167-0
AU - Botta A.
AU - Avallone A.
AU - Garofalo M.
AU - ventre G.
PY - 2016
SP - 514
EP - 521
DO - 10.5220/0005798705140521